Seeing the Clancys play in a famous old Manhattan pub would have a profound affect on a man who had just dropped the Zimmerman name. Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening, with our free daily newsletter.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Upīack to Dylan.

His passage across the Atlantic was made possible by the fact that Bobby had returned home to look after the family business.ĭaily Headlines & Evening Telegraph Newsletter The actor Cyril Cusack urged him to dispense with William, because it sounded too English, and to use his Irish name, Liam, instead. There, on the banks of the River Suir, she met their mother, Johanna, and their younger brother William - the 11th of 11 children - and it was on her recommendation that he made the trip to America to try his hand at showbusiness. Guggenheim was so struck by their story that she travelled to Ireland to capture a sense of their origins. The mining heiress was passionate about the preservation of traditional songs and she immediately connected with the Clancys and the way their singing brought ancient compositions to life. It was in New York in the middle years of the 1950s that they first attracted the attention of Diane Guggenheim. Paddy, Tom and Bobby Clancy had hit the ground running in America, and after a stint acting on and off Broadway, they were becoming a fixture on the burgeoning folk scene on the east coast.

And yet the most celebrated son of the latter place owes a considerable debt to a band of brothers from the town on the Waterford border.īy the time young Robert Zimmerman was packing a few belongings and his acoustic guitar and heading to New York, the Clancy Brothers were already well established in the city, having made the journey from Tipperary to the US in the early 1950s.

Or, to be more specific, it’s a hell of a journey from Carrick-on-Suir to Hibbing. It’s a long way from Tipperary to Minnesota. As the folk singer turns 80, John Meagher looks back at the influence Irish musicians like the Clancy Brothers, Bono and Shane MacGowan have had on his music.

Clancy brothers when the ship comes in